Sasha Colby - Staging Modernist Lives: H.D., Mina Loy, Nancy Cunard, Three Plays and Criticism

STAGING MODERNIST LIVES

SASHA COLBY

McGill-Queens University Press

Montreal & Kingston London Chicago

McGill-Queens University Press 2017

ISBN 978-0-7735-4893-0 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-7735-4894-7 (paper)

ISBN 978-0-7735-4895-4 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-0-7735-4896-1 (ePUB)

Legal deposit first quarter 2017

Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

This publication has been made possible by a grant from the Simon Fraser University Publications Fund.

McGill-Queens University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Colby, Sasha, 1978, author

Staging modernist lives : H.D., Mina Loy, Nancy Cunard, three plays and criticism / Sasha Colby.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-7735-4893-0 (cloth).

ISBN 978-0-7735-4894-7 (paper).

ISBN 978-0-7735-4895-4 (ePDF).

ISBN 978-0-7735-4896-1 (ePUB)

1. H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), 18861961 Criticism and interpretation. 2. Loy, Mina Criticism and interpretation. 3. Cunard, Nancy, 18961965 Criticism and interpretation. 4. English drama 20th century History and criticism. 5. American drama 20th century History and criticism. 6. Modernism (Literature) English-speaking countries. I. Title.

The first of these plays, a version of the drama about H.D., debuted ten years ago at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. Since then, I have incurred many debts that have led to the completed book manuscript. Financially, this project has been supported by a multi-year Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and a series of grants from Simon Fraser University: a University Publications Fund Grant, a World Literature Research Grant, and a Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Chairs and Directors Grant. Intellectually, the work has been supported by a number of people. In terms of project development, I owe a great deal to the participants of the faculty writing workshop at the 2011 session of the Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research at Harvard, particularly seminar leader Martin Puchner, who asked the crucial question that opened up the theory behind this work. I would like to thank Akitoshi Nagahata at Nagoya University for inviting me to Japan and for organizing the performances in Nagoya and Shizuoka (2010) as well as for his early support of a dramatized method. Suzette Henke has also been a champion of this project and created space for the work at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900 (2010). Sophia Forster (Cal Poly, 2014), Alfred Bendixen (American Literature Association Poetry Symposium, 2007), Luke Carson, Sheila Rabillard, Allana Lindgren, Stephen Ross, and their team of student stage technicians (Modernist Studies Association Conference in Victoria, 2010) all facilitated performances that provided opportunities for experimentation, discussion, and exchange. I also benefited from warm receptions and critical questioning at the Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa (2011), the Ezra Pound conferences in Rome and Venice (2007 and 2009), the Durrell School of Corfu (2007), the University of Torontos Festival of Original Theatre (2012), and the SFU Presidents Faculty Lecture (2015). Peter Nichollss influence is present in any modernist work that I pursue. Shawk Alani and Lauren Fournier were very fine research assistants and I thank them both for their work on the text, as I do Laura Anderson for her handling of the digital performance materials used in creating and refining the scripts. Librarians and staff at the Beinecke Library at Yale, the Harry Ransom Research Center and the University of Texas at Austin (with special thanks to Pat Fox), and the British Library in London were unfailingly knowledgeable and helpful.

At Simon Fraser University, the encouragement and incisive advice of Bev Neufeld has been essential to the projects successes. Friends and colleagues, many of whom are also working on research-creation projects or support this kind of work, helped move the manuscript forward with their kindness and contributions. They include Paul Budra, Lara Campbell, Richard Cavell, David Chariandy, Peter Dickinson, Stephen Duguid, Holly Hendrigan, Asli Igsiz, Helen Leung, Sophie McCall, Sean Markey, Roxanne Panchasi, Diana Solomon, and Jerry Zaslove. Peter Dickinson and David Chariandy also read sections of the manuscript and provided sensitive and thoughtful comments. The Graduate Liberal Studies program at SFU Vancouver gave this project a place to be as it did me at a time when the English Department also extended its generosity and support. Gina Stockdale, Julian Giordano, Audrey Himmer Jude, Heather Blakemore, Eddy van Wyk, Carmine Santavenere, Kayte Summers (Catherine Caines), Ian Graham, James Eadie, Sally Clark, Mary Ann Caws, Margaret Hollingsworth, Rob Kitsos, the SFU School for Contemporary Arts, and the Port Theatre variously provided starting points, encouragement, collaborative insight, and practical help. Theatre projects on Gabriola Island and the ways in which the community kept faith with those projects over many years were sustaining forces. Graduate and undergraduate students in my playwriting and performance courses at SFU encouraged me with their talent and enthusiasm. The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Deans Office and the SFU Presidents Office have both been supportive of experimental approaches in research and teaching, which speaks of a notable institutional open-mindedness. At McGill-Queens University Press, Jonathan Crago shepherded the manuscript to publication and also worked with me to figure out what a research-creation book of this type might look like. The two anonymous peer-reviewers contributed substantially to the book as it appears here and I thank them for their feedback and diligence. Kathleen Fraser provided fine editorial advice and the MQUP publication team, as a whole, was helpful, intelligent, and thoughtful in its approach. I would also like to thank Carolyn Burke, Anne Chisholm, Lois Gordon, Barbara Guest, Susan Stanford-Friedman, and Caroline Zilboorg (among many others) for the foundational work they have done in creating biographical pathways for understanding Loy, Cunard, and H.D.

For enduring endless rehearsals and script-readings, often in the kitchen or dining room, I am grateful to my family Brian Colby, Lucy Colby, John Mallory, and Irina Nikifortchuk. They believed in me and the work I was doing even when it meant divided time and attention. Thanks, too, to Tatianna, who thought character work was a great game and so obligingly fell asleep to the clatter of the keyboard and to those who entertained and cared for her when she did not.

Finally, in the case of the plays, where a great deal of copyrighted material has been employed to show the range and breadth of work by H.D., Loy, and Cunard, the consent of the copyright holders to reprint has been key. I would therefore like to thank the publishers and estates that have provided permission: Robert Bell for materials from the Nancy Cunard Collection at the University of Texas at Austin; Carcanet Press for